


Window

by Basingstoke



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-05-20
Updated: 2001-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-02 15:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basingstoke/pseuds/Basingstoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For RavenD, who's so patient when I dabble in other fandoms.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Window

**Author's Note:**

> For RavenD, who's so patient when I dabble in other fandoms.

"It's not that I don't like women," Mulder said once between extremely annoying cracks at his sunflower seeds, "it's just that it never works out well."

I thought about Diana Fowley and Phoebe Green and wondered who else Mulder had gotten himself mixed up with, if they were representative. "Mulder...maybe you were chasing the wrong women. Did you ever think of that?"

He gave me a look and put on a ridiculous Southern accent. "Why Miss Scully, was that a proposition? I am _shocked_."

I laughed. "No, Mulder." I gave him a smile. "But now I'm picturing you in a hoop skirt."

"There's an idea. Think that fits in the office dress code?" He spit more sunflower shells out the window of the car, and that's when I stopped being attracted to him and we became real friends instead.

That's why I went to him when I decided I had to try to conceive.

"Mental instability doesn't run in my family," Mulder said in the waiting room. "It's probably not genetic." He smiled.

"That's comforting." I punched his shoulder. He faked pain, giving me big wounded eyes.

Later I had a glass of wine and thought about Mulder as a father, as the father of _my_ child. Dashing in and out, bringing back souvenirs from one trip or another--I wouldn't be his partner any more; I was planning already to take a teaching post at Quantico once the child was born. I pictured Mulder hanging a mobile of stuffed crabs and lobsters and UFOs over the baby's crib. Teaching the child to throw a perfect curveball, to eat sunflower seeds, to count to twenty in Sanskrit. I pictured a little girl with Mulder's nose and decided that was an acceptable price for Mulder's IQ, and then felt bad for breaking him down into his component parts like a junkyard car.

I can't help hoping the baby is Mulder's even if logic tells me it's not.

I can't stop hoping he's not--gone--for good.

I stand up, one hand over my belly, and walk away from his grave.

END.


End file.
